GREAT RECORDINGS phase 14

KREISLER: ORIGINAL COMPOSITIONS & ARRANGEMENTS
Fritz Kreisler

4 76840 2
(Angel: 4 76841 2)
Recorded 1930, 1935, 1936 & 1938
Mono/ADD
79 minutes

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‘In this well-chosen selection of Kreisler playing his own pieces and arrangements, the performances are as magical as ever and the original sound quality is very well brought out in the excellent transfers.’ (Gramophone)

Award: Diapason d’Or, France

Fritz Kreisler (1875–1962) was the most admired and beloved of all great 20th-century violinists. Born in Vienna, he was a child prodigy and, in 1882, the youngest student to be admitted to the Conservatory, where he won the gold medal at the age of ten. At the Paris Conservatoire he won a premier prix in 1887. After some years spent travelling and broadening his education, he embarked on his mature career in 1896 and rapidly established his international credentials.

In a performing and recording career that lasted half a century, Kreisler made three vital contributions to violin playing. The first was his use of a warm and sensuous vibrato, which he applied to every phrase (a technique that inspired Pablo Casals and Lionel Tertis to create their own cello and viola sounds). Secondly, he was able to extract a huge range of colours from the violin by his skilful (and often unusual) positioning of the bow on the string. Thirdly, he became noted for a long series of compositions, though he caused a rumpus in 1935 when he admitted that many of the ‘Baroque’ pieces he played were in fact his own creations. He was also famous for his and transcriptions of works by other composers.

This CD features Kreisler, recorded in the 1930s and at the height of his powers, in a sequence of his compositions and arrangements (all of which are now firmly established in the violin repertoire). Among his own pieces are some delicious Viennese trifles and some of those notorious ‘Baroque’ pastiches, and the selection of his transcriptions covers a wide range of composers, styles and moods.